[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 164 (Wednesday, December 19, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S8204-S8205]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          STATEMENTS ON INTRODUCED BILLS AND JOINT RESOLUTIONS

      By Mr. KERRY (for himself, Mrs. Gillibrand and Mr. Lautenberg):
  S. 3691. A bill to minimize the economic and social costs resulting 
from losses of life, property, well-being, business activity, and 
economic growth associated with extreme weather events by ensuring that 
the United States is more resilient to the impacts of extreme weather 
events in the short- and long-term, and for other purposes; to the 
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, today I am introducing the STRONG Act of 
2012, or the Strengthening The Resilience of Our National on the Ground 
Act. This legislation will build upon existing extreme weather 
resiliency efforts to provide State and local actors with the tools and 
information they need to help prepare, plan for, and more quickly 
recover from extreme weather events. Hurricane Sandy has shown us that 
extreme weather remains a major challenge for our Nation.
  Recently, extreme weather events have battered the nation, resulting 
in record-high losses for 2011 and more broken records in 2012. In the 
past 30 years, there have been more than 130 extreme weather events in 
the United States that generated at least $1 billion in devastating 
damages. Most recently, Hurricane Sandy resulted in more than 100 
deaths, the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people, power 
outages affecting more than 8.5 million homes, massive flooding, 
gasoline shortages, and a crippled regional energy and transportation 
infrastructure. Extreme weather ravaged every region of the United 
States this year, with drought conditions in more than 60 percent of 
the contiguous United States; deadly floods; destructive wildfires on 
more than nine million acres across 37 States; and deadly heat waves.
  By building stronger communities, we can reduce the serious economic 
and human costs of extreme weather over the short and long term. For 
every $1 spent now on disaster preparedness and resilience-building, we 
could avoid at least $4 in future losses. We need to make our Nation 
stronger and more resilient against extreme weather or face an 
increasingly more expensive and deadly future.
  The STRONG Act of 2012 will use existing Federal resources to help 
reduce future losses of life, property, and well-being. It will also 
help limit declines in regional economic growth due to disasters. 
Specifically, it directs the Federal Government to create a more 
comprehensive approach to planning for and supporting resiliency 
efforts due to extreme weather. The bill directs the White House Office 
of Science and Technology Policy to chair a high-level interagency 
working group to assess Federal agencies' activities related to extreme 
weather resilience across key sectors, such as agriculture, water 
management, infrastructure, public health, and national security. It 
develops a plan to better support State, local, and private and public 
sector resiliency efforts in the short and long-term, including 
establishing a public clearinghouse of information. The bill emphasizes 
State, local, and private sector involvement; a Federal advisory group 
composed of private and public representatives will play a key 
consultative role throughout the process, as will an advisory group 
composed of State, local, and tribal representatives. It also 
complements and builds upon recent activities by my colleagues and the 
White House in the Federal response to the devastation of Hurricane 
Sandy.
  I believe that by better understanding and planning, we can reduce 
the serious economic and human costs of extreme weather on our 
communities. The events of 2012 and years past have clearly 
demonstrated the need for better and more efficient governance before 
disaster strikes again.
  A number of organizations are supportive of this bill, including the 
U.S. Conference of Mayors, the National Association of Counties, the 
National Emergency Management Association, the National Weather 
Association, and the American Planning Association.
  I am pleased that Senators Gillibrand and Lautenberg are original 
cosponsors of this legislation. I look forward to building upon a 
strong foundation and improving our extreme weather resiliency efforts. 
It is our responsibility to protect our citizens and help minimize 
future loss and damage. I ask all Senators to support this legislation.
                                 ______
                                 
      By Mr. LIEBERMAN (for himself, Mr. Durbin, Mrs. Murray, and Mrs. 
        Boxer):
  S. 3696. A bill to provide for the admission of the State of New 
Columbia into the Union; to the Committee on Homeland Security and 
Governmental Affairs.

[[Page S8205]]

  Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I rise to introduce the New Columbia 
Admissions Act that will create a 51st State from the populated 
portions of Washington, D.C., giving these more than 600,000 
disenfranchised Americans the voice they deserve in our national 
government. The United States is the only democracy in the world that 
denies voting representation to the people who live in its capital 
city. It is long past time to end this unjust and embarrassing 
distinction.
  I am not the only Senator who feels this way--Senators Durbin, Boxer, 
and Murray join me in cosponsoring this bill today. My friend Senator 
Inouye had planned to cosponsor this bill as he was a strong supporter 
of the District's right to have congressional representation.
  Under this bill, there would still be Federal district called 
Washington, D.C., which would be under the control of Congress as the 
Constitution mandates. But it would be a smaller area encompassing the 
White House, the Capitol, the Supreme Court and the National Mall, 
where few people actually live. The rest of the current District of 
Columbia--diverse business districts and residential neighborhoods that 
are home to more than half a million U.S. citizens--would become a new 
State.
  This is completely in accord with the principles and mandates of the 
Constitution and our Founding Fathers. Indeed, I think it is worth 
remembering why our Founding Fathers created a Federal district in the 
first place.
  After the Revolutionary War, Philadelphia, PA, was the capital of the 
government formed by the Articles of Confederation. That Congress met 
in what we now know as Independence Hall in Philadephia.
  In 1783, a mob of Revolutionary War veterans besieged Independence 
Hall, demanding promised payments for their service during the war. 
Congress asked the governor of Pennsylvania, John Dickinson, to call 
out the militia to defend the capital, but he sided with the veterans 
and refused.
  Congress had to flee to Princeton, NJ.
  This failure of a state government to protect the national government 
became a major concern of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 and it 
was decided the Constitution must create a Federal district that could 
be controlled and protected by the new Federal government.
  But Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution, which created the 
Federal district, did not order a particular location. It only said 
only that it may not exceed ``10 miles square''--or 100 square miles.
  The Residence Act of 1790 gave President Washington authority to pick 
the final site of the capital, and the site of the current Washington 
D.C. was chosen as a result of a compromise between Thomas Jefferson 
and Alexander Hamilton.
  When John Adams moved into the White House in 1800, Washington, D.C. 
had a population of just 3,210 people--in a Nation of roughly 5 
million. Even then the founders were concerned about voting rights for 
residents of the new capital. In the early days before the capital was 
fully established, its residents were allowed to vote in Maryland or 
Virginia. There were proposals to guarantee their suffrage going 
forward but unfortunately they did not get enacted amid the press to 
establish the new government. Certainly, though, it would have been 
unimaginable to the founders that a population of more than half a 
million in our capital city should be disenfranchised in the national 
legislature.
  Yet that is the current reality. Now we are a Nation of more than 300 
million and Washington, D.C. is a thriving community of 618,000 people. 
That's more people than Wyoming has and about the same as Vermont and 
North Dakota have, which, of course, have full representation in 
Congress. Acccording to the U.S. Census, Washington, D.C. is growing 
faster than all 50 States. Demographers expect it will only get bigger 
in the years to come because much of that growth has been with young 
people who want to raise families in the District.
  The District of Columbia already functions as a state in many 
respects--indeed the Federal Government treats it as a State for 
purposes of most Federal programs.
  More important, the residents of the District of Columbia have all 
the responsibilities of U.S. citizenship. They pay more Federal income 
tax per capita than residents of any state; D.C. residents and 
businesses send on average $20 billion to the Federal treasury each 
year. D.C. residents must serve on Federal juries and male residents 
must register for Selective Service. More than 190,000 D.C. residents 
have served in the military in wartime and about 1,700 have died for 
our country in the wars of the last century alone. All this occurred 
while the District's residents were denied voting representation in 
Congress.
  The current inequity has even been noted by international bodies, 
including the United Nations Human Rights Commission, as a possible 
violation of international human rights accords.
  It is long past time to give these American citizens who have chosen 
Washington as their home full participation in our democracy. People 
who live in D.C. are, of course, as American as people who live 
throughout our country--teachers, firefighters, doctors, janitors, 
parents, children, veterans, retirees. Why do their contributions to 
our democracy--financial and otherwise--merit rights and representation 
any less than those of their fellow citizens in the 50 states?
  In sum, nothing in the Constitution prevents Congress from ceding 
this territory to a new State. There will still be a Federal district 
under Congressional control and protected by Federal authorities.
  The voters of this new state will have the same rights we give voters 
in every other State, including those seven small states with 
populations under 1 million. If the idea seems strange, remember that 
many also once could not imagine full voting rights for women or racial 
minorities. It is the nature of civil rights that the disenfranchised 
must fight to gain acceptance of rights that, in retrospect, seem 
morally compelled and beyond question. We must right this injustice 
toward the residents of the District just as Congress historically has 
righted other voting injustices that stretched back to the very 
founding of the Nation.
  I will soon leave Congress after having had the great privilege of 
serving here for 24 years. Securing full voting rights for the 600,000 
Americans who live in the District of Columbia is unfinished business, 
not just for me, but for the United States of America.

                          ____________________